


The Same Sweet Shock

by pettifogger



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Devoted Kylo Ren, Devoted Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Devoted Reylo, Dominant Rey, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Bond Shenanigans, Frottage, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Non-Penetrative Sex, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Pre-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Sharing a Bed, Submissive Kylo Ren, The Force Ships It, Yeah the title is a Hozier pun sorry, it's so soft, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:33:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25905910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pettifogger/pseuds/pettifogger
Summary: Rey is lost in thought for long enough that it’s weird that Ben —Kylo— hasn’t spoken. She squints in dim light, reflecting dull off the metal walls.Ah.That would explain it: he might not be awake. Or he might be faking it, because his back is to her, and she can’t tell if he’s lying there and pretending to be unconscious or if he’s actually asleep. She huffs out a sigh and sinks further down against the wall.Now that he’s occupying her bed, she realizes that the idea of getting into it and falling asleep actually sounds incredibly appealing. She tells herself not to think too hard about that.Or: 5.6k of very soft reylo tropes, starting with bedsharing and ending with a hint of Bendemption. Enjoy!
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 11
Kudos: 95





	The Same Sweet Shock

Rey is not in bed. She is tired, but she is not in bed, because she’s avoiding it. Trying to sleep means giving up and surrendering to two equally undesirable options: the faceless nightmares that make her cry and scream in her sleep, or the dreams about touching where it’s the face of the person touching her that fills her with guilt when she wakes up. Those dreams make her feel hot and cold all at once and she wishes she could scrub them from her skin like dirt or grime or engine grease.

So she is not sleeping. She’s sitting against the durasteel wall, across the room from her cot, letting the cold of the metal spread freezing tendrils through her chest, and pretending that’s meditation. 

Then, because of course, her ears pop. 

“Fuck,” she mutters. She rubs her tired eyes and realizes there is nowhere to hide in her tiny room. When she opens her eyes, Ben — _Kylo_ — is in her bed. 

Huh. Now she’s actually glad she wasn’t in it.

She’s waiting for his cutting remark and preparing her own if he doesn’t offer one. It’s their way of greeting, now. They can’t stop materializing in each other’s lives, but he can’t stand to look at her anymore. When she slips through the cracks in his walls, into his mind, she sees herself: every time he looks at her, now, he sees his outstretched hand and her saying no. So he tries to ignore her, and she is curt in return, and both of them pretend they aren’t in each other’s dreams. 

Rey is lost in thought for long enough that it’s weird that Ben — _Kylo_ — hasn’t spoken. She squints in dim light, reflecting dull off the metal walls. _Ah._ That would explain it: he might not be awake. Or he might be faking it, because his back is to her, and she can’t tell if he’s lying there and pretending to be unconscious or if he’s actually asleep. She huffs out a sigh and sinks further down against the wall. 

Now that he’s occupying her bed, she realizes that the idea of getting into it and falling asleep actually sounds incredibly appealing. She tells herself not to think too hard about that. 

Moments pass. Rey fidgets on the floor. She’s terrible at meditation. And she is pretty sure he’s faking it, because she’s dropped into his mind right before he woke up a few times, and he sleeps like her: fitful, restless, tossing and turning. She’s never seen him wake up screaming, though, not like her. 

“You know I’m here,” she finally says. 

A pause. Then a grunt. 

She tries again. “You’re not fooling me.”

“Who says I was trying to fool you?” He hasn’t turned over. 

She flushes. Maybe he wasn’t trying to mess with her. She just assumed. 

“Maybe I’m actually trying to sleep and you’re making it difficult. Your thoughts are loud, you know.” 

The flush grows deeper. She must be more tired than she thought; she’s gotten good at shielding her mind from him, but sometimes, it slips. She stays silent. 

He rolls over, but he still doesn’t look at her. He looks up at whatever is on the ceiling of whatever room he’s in, systems away from her. “Where am I for you?”

“You’re — uh.” _Force,_ she thinks, _is it hot in here?_ She can’t stop flushing. “My bed.”

He grunts noncommittally but she feels a weird, spiked emotion travel through the bond. Interesting. He must be tired too, if she can feel anything emanating from him. 

“If I’m in your bed, where are you?” He turns and looks at her this time. His arms are behind his head and his face is tilted towards her. The scar looks better, she notes. Less red and angry. 

“I’m glad my appearance isn’t offensive to you.”

 _Force._ “I’m on the floor.”

“Is that a custom on Jakku? Do scavengers often sleep on the floor?”

He’s messing with her. She huffs. “No.”

“So what are you doing on the floor?”

“Well, I was going to sleep, but my bed seems to be occupied.”

Again, that strange feeling that twists through their bond. This time, she’s not sure where it originates. He looks at the ceiling again. 

“How big is your bed?”

What kind of question is that? Has he hit his head? Is he in the bloody medbay? This is the possibly the longest civil conversation they’ve had since she left him in the wreck of the throne room, and she’s expecting either the connection to fizzle out or one of them to snap. It could happen at any moment. Then she realizes she’s been quiet for long enough to make the silence awkward. 

“...what?” 

“I imagine my bed is bigger than whatever the Resistance has supplied on whatever backwater planet you’re on.” 

_He's chatty tonight._

“Nice.” Rey is struggling to keep up with this conversation. Why are they still talking about beds? Why can’t he just disappear and let her try to sleep? It occurs to her that she wouldn’t be able to sleep now, even if he disappeared. Lying in her bed, with the warmth of his body still on her sheets, would not be conducive to anything resembling rest. 

He sighs and a sense of decisiveness ripples through the bond. _Finally,_ Rey thinks. He’s going to get up, and he’s either going to lean against the wall because he thinks that looks cool, or he’s going to mirror her pose against another wall and they’ll just sit there, cold and silent and stubborn. 

“Come here.”

That was not one of the options she considered. Rey doesn’t speak. She also doesn’t breathe. 

“Your bed is probably big enough.”

As if that explains anything he’s saying. 

“Why?” She genuinely doesn’t understand. 

He looks at her again, brown eyes black in the flickering light. “Because I can feel how tired you are, and you can feel how tired I am, and I don’t want to get out of my bed, and I think you want to get in yours.”

“Are you asking me —?”

He cuts her off like he doesn’t want her to actually say it. To give a name to — whatever the hell he’s asking her. “Yes.”

She considers it for a long moment. Her back hurts from the durasteel and her legs are cramping. She could stay here for hours longer, if she needed to, because her stubbornness easily wins over her physical comfort. But she allows herself to imagine, for a half-second, how it would feel to drop her boots at the foot of the cot and sink down next to him. She’s cold and he would probably be warm. Would he put his arms around her? Her blood turns to ice when she realizes her imagination is venturing into the territory of the dreams she tries to forget every morning. 

“Fine. Have it your way.” He huffs and turns his back to her again. 

“Wait.” She’s standing up before she can think about it. She does exactly what she rehearsed in her mind: she crosses the room, kicks off her boots, and unwinds the wraps from her arms. Usually she sleeps in just a loose nightshirt, but the idea of exposing any more skin while lying so close to him makes her face warm. _Oh,_ she thinks, as she realizes other places on her body feel warm too. 

“Move over,” she says, hands on her hips and glaring down at him. He looks — odd. Like he didn’t think this would actually happen. _He doesn’t have a plan,_ she realizes. His face is uncharacteristically open, his expression the sort of softness that comes with being half-asleep. He obeys her in an instant. 

Gingerly, she kneels on the bed. She takes in the situation, and pretends the way his body fills her bed doesn’t make her blood spark. She might fit in the bed if she lies down along his side, but then again, she might end up pushing him over the opposite edge. As funny as it sounds to unceremoniously knock Kylo Ren off her bed and onto the floor, she doesn’t want to shatter whatever fragile thing is hanging in the air between them. 

Before she can try to lie down, and probably elbow him in the chest or the face or the stomach, Kylo reaches up and tugs her down. She goes easily, letting him position her so she’s lying against his side, arm draped across his chest, her body halfway on top of his. 

It’s a moment before she realizes he did not touch her legs at all, and yet, her left leg is thrown over his. Like she’s trying to hug him horizontally. Like she’s trying to touch as much of him as she can at once. Which is definitely not what she’s doing, not at all.

“I’m not going to bite you,” he says, his tone slightly resentful. _Ooh,_ that’s interesting. His deep voice rumbles out of his chest and into her. Another spike across the bond. “And if you’re wondering,” he says, eyes closed, “I can’t even reach my lightsaber right now if I wanted to.”

“I wasn’t — alright.” She lets her muscles relax. She was right. He’s warm. Under his soft black sleeping clothes, he’s like a furnace. Her desert body likes it — he’s her personal sun. She can hear his heart hammering in his chest and the subtle flex of his hand on her waist. He’s solid and real and it’s as if the Force is molding them to fit against each other. 

She _really_ hopes he can’t hear her. 

Moments stretch into minutes. The bedside table with her clock on it is next to Kylo’s side of the bed — did she just say his side of the bed? — so she can’t keep track of time passing. She focuses on his breath, the way her head moves just a little with the slow rise and fall of his chest. He’s so solid, and she expected it to be uncomfortable to lie on what is essentially a wall of muscle, but somehow lying against him is more comfortable than any bed she’s ever slept in. When she presses at the connection, gently, she finds him shut off to her. _Hm._ With his wall that resolute, she knows for certain that he’s still awake. 

She doesn’t know what to say, so she just hums. He cracks his eyes open and looks down at her. Oh _no._ The unguarded look on his face, the softness in his eyes as he looks at her, feels too good to be a good idea. 

Briefly, she thinks she’s gone mad, or this is another dream: she’s sharing a bed with her supposed mortal enemy, who until only very recently was trying to kill her and everyone she loves, and instead of feeling uncomfortable, she feels like she’s sunk into a warm bath that she never wants to get out of. She feels _safe. Stars._

“I can tell you aren’t asleep.”

Across the bond, she hears a thought echo from him: _she’s cute when she scrunches her nose up like that._ Surprised, she does it again, without realizing it. He shifts underneath her. 

“I. Uh. Too tired to actually sleep, you know?”

 _Sure._ “Mhm.”

She lets the silence last. It’s nice. Her mind wanders. She wonders what would happen if there was an emergency on base and someone came barging through her door. Would they see her lying on her side, half her body hovering just slightly over the cot? They would probably dismiss that as _just another Jedi thing._ Or would they see what’s actually there: Rey, hero of the Resistance, curled up against her alleged enemy, Kylo Ren, looking up at him like he’s her personal sun?

She didn’t mean to think that last bit. 

He makes a weird noise like a cough or maybe a grunt. He shifts under her again, like he’s trying to inch away from her. 

“Am I too heavy?” she asks. “Don’t want to cut off your circulation.” 

“No — I — uh.” He’s stuttering. She’s never heard him stutter before. He shifts his hips away from her. She readjusts her legs across his and lifts her chest so he can reposition the arm wrapped around her.

“Is that more comfortable?” She sinks back down into his arms. 

“Yes.” It sounds a little strangled. 

She’s moved her limbs off him a little, so there’s no way he’s cutting off his circulation, so she tells herself it’s okay to press herself a bit closer to him. As if that’s possible. As if there’s any room left between them. With her head on his chest, she can hear his heartbeat loud and clear. Hm. She has an inkling as to the direction of his thoughts. Ever curious — she tells herself it’s out of curiosity, and curiosity alone — she decides to test her hypothesis. 

“You know, this doesn’t feel like the first time you’ve been in my room.”

He sounds genuinely confused. “It isn’t.”

“Well,” _kriff_ , that’s not what she meant, “you’ve never been here physically, though.”

“I guess not.”

“I mean. It doesn’t feel like the first time you’ve been in my bed.”

That gets his attention. The bond spikes like radio static and his arm tenses around her. His response is slow and careful: “It doesn’t?” 

Simultaneously, she feels the compulsive need to keep talking and an all-consuming regret that she set them down this path. _Fuck._ “No.” She pauses just a second too long and feels a wave of disappointment from him. It spurs her on. “Do you dream about me?”

Kylo stiffens under her. He looks down at her. Rey looks up at him. Slowly, he nods.

“I dream about you, too. I never know if you’re actually there, if we’re dreaming in the Force, or if it’s just a regular dream. Whatever a regular dream is.”

Rey doesn’t know what’s possessed her. She’s never this talkative — with him or anyone else.

“But — I’ve had dreams like this before.”

His voice is so rough she can practically feel it on her skin. “In your bed?”

“In my bed.”

When she reaches out with her mind, she finds his walls down. Instead of clear thoughts and images, his mind is a heady mix of emotions; desire, but also fear and anxiety and hunger and heat, woven through with a constant undercurrent of shame. Fragmented visuals come through the bond: dreams that look like hers, from his perspective. His hand on her face, pulling her up to meet him; his mouth on the soft skin of her neck; a flash of her chest, fabric rushing across her skin as he — or she? — pulls it aside; soft groans that could have been made by either of them. She feels echoes of his pleasure, too, a wave slowly building and then the release, white-hot, burning like the shame that consumes him immediately afterwards.

Rey yanks herself out of his mind. 

“ _Ben._ ” She didn’t even mean to say it, that name. She’s shocked when he doesn’t flinch.

The look on his face is raw. It looks like pain. Like when she left him, wounded and bleeding, on Starkiller Base, on the _Supremacy_. 

Shame courses through him and down the bond to her. “I’m sorry.” He sounds genuine. 

She wants to respond but she doesn’t know what to say. He’s _apologizing?_ For _this_ , of all things? Well, he's always been an idiot. 

“I know that’s not what you meant when you said you dream about me. I can’t stop it.”

Rey is reeling, but she refuses to let him assume things he doesn’t know about her. “How do you know that’s not what I meant?”

He is baffled. Fragmented thoughts fall into her head, and the voice sounds suspiciously like Snoke’s: _she is a distraction_ and _she will never want you_ and _your — desires — are base and vile_. Rey wants to grab him — _Ben_ — and shake him. How can he think that?

She’s cursing herself for bringing this up. It felt so good, just a moment ago: lying on his chest, listening to his breath, both pretending to sleep but content in each other’s presence. Then she had to open her mouth and bring it all crashing down. The words are sticking in her throat. If she can’t talk, the solution seems apparent: let him see her dreams.

“ _Ben,_ ” she says, firmly, and reaches up to grab his face. She’s never touched him like this, as many times as she’s thought about it. He looks down at her as if in a daze. “Listen to me.”

And then she _slams_ the images into him. They’re vague and fuzzy on the edges, the fantasies of a girl who grew up alone, without touch, with no points of reference, but they’re real enough to cause his eyes to dilate and breathing go shallow. She holds nothing back; the soft dreams where she sleeps wrapped in his arms, the yearning ones where he unwraps her tan robes like a gift and takes her breasts in his mouth, and the ones where he finally, _finally_ touches her, with his mouth or his — 

He chokes. “Rey.” 

She meets his gaze and doesn’t break it. 

“Rey,” he repeats, like it’s the only word he can remember.

 _Force_ , she thinks, _I’ve broken him_. Then she’s shifting up in the bed and pulling his face to hers, lips crashing in a short, rough kiss. He groans against her mouth, and when he pulls back, the air between them feels heavy and charged. “Rey,” he repeats, and his hand slides into her hair and he tilts her face just _so_ and they’re kissing again. The second time is better, his full lips moving against hers, the hand in her hair holding her close to him. This time, she moans against his mouth, and he slips his tongue past her lips. She wants to panic, wants to break away and tell him _I’ve never done this before_ and _I’m sorry,_ but he senses her anxiety through the bond, soothes it, sends her the shape of what she should do next. She sinks into the kiss like she sunk into bed with him, letting his warmth subsume her. 

When he breaks the kiss to take a breath, his chest heaving, it’s like he’s been hypnotized. His gaze is locked on her lips and he slowly drags it up to meet hers. She half-expects him to say her name again, as that’s all he seems capable of doing, and she’s surprised when he doesn’t. 

“I — what—"

Supreme Leaders should not be _cute,_ Rey thinks to herself, but the way Ben stutters after kissing her is very close to cute. She doesn’t know what to do next, has nothing to guide her but the vague instincts of her body, so she cups his face with her hand and shifts up to be closer to him. 

She also doesn’t know what to say, because how could she? He’s her mortal enemy, she keeps reminding herself of it; but he also offered her his hand and showed her his weaknesses. Really, she can’t be blamed for the way she reacts to him. Having seen his vulnerability before, she needs to see it again; she needs to _cause_ it, needs to have him on his knees for her, needs to hear him whimper and moan and do all the things she does when she touches herself in the dark of night and tries not to think of him. She needs to break him down and build him back up. She doesn’t know how, but she feels the ache in her _bones_. 

So she moves. Action comes easier than thought for scavengers. Ben is a puzzle to be solved, layers and layers of locks and doors, and she will figure out how to open each and every one. And that begins with throwing her leg fully across him and pushing herself up to straddle him. Her knees are spread wide on either side of his hips; he’s so damn large and broad. Her stomach does flips when she considers what else about him might be _large_. 

_Oh_ , his hands, certainly. He brings his hands up tentatively, wrapping around her waist. She tilts her hips into his grip and sucks in a breath when she feels him between her legs. “ _Yes._ ” 

He’s still looking at her like she created the galaxy. It occurs to her that this must seem a dream to him, another of the kind they seem to share, so she lays her mind bare to him. She welcomes him in, showing him all the complexity there: excitement, anxiety, questioning, and through it all, a burning need. No dream could capture that. She thinks it, doesn’t speak it aloud. Still, her silent thoughts translate to the physical realm. A passing image of a reoccurring dream — his dark head buried between her thighs — makes him dig his fingers into the soft part of her waist and twitch underneath her. 

“Rey…” He starts and stops again. He smooths his hands down her sides as if to buy time. She leans into it. “Is this what you want?”

Can’t he feel that? “ _Yes._ ” She leans down to kiss him, flattening her palms on his chest along the way. “I need you.”

“I don’t want…” He can’t speak it, but Rey hears the thought loud and clear. His body is a machine, a tool, he thinks. He is his saber, bloody and unstable, meant for cutting and slashing, unaccustomed to the soft intertwining of bodies. He doesn’t know where his desire fits into his identity. His passions lead to ruin. He fears his desire will consume her. He fears he will hurt her. 

“You can’t.”

“I can.” His fingers trail up her arm to trace the blaster scar there. 

“Not like this.” 

She takes his hand and splays it across her heart. It feels trite, perhaps, but she needs the solemnity. She needs to know he’s here with her. 

“Don’t be afraid. I feel it too.”

A ghost of a smile across his lips. His mouth drops into a small _o_ when she guides his hand down to cup her breast, palming it through the thin fabric of her shirt. She breathes out a soft moan and he holds her more firmly, rolling her nipple between his fingers. 

“Just like that.” She barely recognizes her own voice. 

“You’re perfect.”

 _Stars,_ she thinks, receiving his thoughts unbidden, _he means it_. 

He eases into this strange dance they have begun, tugging at the layers of her top to expose her breasts to the cool air. She can barely feel cold before his hot mouth is on her. His tongue is clever across her nipples, tracing circles that make her want to sob. 

“Beautiful,” he says, parting from her chest long enough to speak. “So fucking _light_. So fucking _perfect_.” 

The vehemence underscoring his compliments makes her heartbeat pound between her legs. Then his mouth is back on her and she starts rocking against him in a rough, instinctual rhythm. 

“I’ve thought about this,” he says. His voice is rough. She looks down at him. “Every time we fought.”

 _Funny,_ she thinks, drily, _every time we fought I was thinking about how not to die._

But she doesn’t say it. Instead, she just tilts her head curiously. 

“You’re — radiant.” He takes a beat to settle on the right word. “Especially when you’re trying to kill me.”

She reaches down between their bodies to press against the growing hardness between his legs. He grunts and tosses his head back. 

“Trying to kill me.” He repeats, and she watches his jaw clench when she moves against him. It feels good to rock her hips in his lap, so she keeps doing it, feeling him grow harder beneath her. His fingers dig into her waist and he clenches his jaw. She wants to see him let go. 

“Touch me, Ben.”

She says it and she doesn’t know what she means exactly but she knows that she is aching for his touch and he must feel the need radiating from her in waves, he _must_. And he obliges, easing a hand between her legs, and she gasps when he touches her where she's most sensitive. He presses his fingers against her over the thin fabric of her pants and suddenly it feels like there’s no air in the room. Her hands grip his shoulders for stability. Anyone could walk in this room and she wouldn’t stop. Even if they saw him, saw her being undone by this man who isn’t quite her enemy, she wouldn’t stop. She needs this and he’s giving it to her and it feels so _good_.

"You're so wet." He sounds amazed.

"Uh-huh." It's hard to remember how to speak in sentences. "For you. Oh, _fuck._ "

Her hands gripping the fabric of his shirt reminds her of the day he appeared to her half-dressed, shining with water from the ‘fresher or sweat or she still doesn’t know but the vision appears in her dreams and she remembers it now. 

“I want to see you.” Rey tugs on the hem of his shirt. He yanks it off easily, exposing his fair skin to the dim light of her room. There is so _much_ to touch. She traces her nails down his chest, circling his nipples, drawing a line that follows the trail of hair under his navel. The sharp breath he takes when she lays her hands on his chest is music to her ears. Her mouth is dry as she reaches the fastening of his pants. Before she can slip her hands underneath, he grabs her wrist. It’s a testament to his strange, newfound softness that there is nothing of Kylo Ren in the gesture. The soft grip of his fingers around her wrist, the uncertain look in his dark eyes — that’s all Ben. 

“Are you sure?” His voice rumbles out of his chest. 

Rey could scream. She could pull down this room around them, crumple the walls, bring a TIE fighter down with the flick of her wrist, just to displace the ache that’s burning under her skin — the same need that he keeps diverting. She needs him and doesn’t care at all if he thinks he isn’t worthy of her touch. He is, and she will show him. She’ll be good for him and he can be good for her. If she can get it through his thick skull. 

“ _Yes_ , Ben.”

He swallows thickly and she watches his throat work and thinks she definitely needs to leave marks there. That’s a pretty thought: her fingers tangled in his dark hair, pulling his head back to allow her to suck marks on the fair skin of his neck and collarbone. The bruises would bloom like flowers, his blue veins their stems. 

Her train of thought is detailed when he releases her wrist and she’s all sand rat desperation when she slips her hand under his waistband. 

_Oh._ He’s hard in her hand, and heavy, and his skin is so soft. She glances up at his face and the look of surprise on her face is mirrored on his. Ben looks — stunned. His eyes are locked on her, his mouth open, his breath uneven. Like she’s testing machinery, Rey slowly starts to stroke him and watches for the corresponding reaction. He chokes out a groan and clamps his jaw shut, as if ashamed of the noises he’s making. She can’t have that. 

“I want to hear you,” she tells him. “Tell me what to do.”

In a tight voice, he instructs her how to make it feel good — the right pressure and pace, how to touch him until he’s shaking. The flush on his face reaches up to his ears and down to his chest, staining his fair skin pink. It’s only after several long minutes of learning her way around his body that she realizes her heartbeat is pounding between her legs. The ache hasn’t gone away, but the curiosity and the appeal of his stunned face distracted her. 

Shields down, he hears her. He _feels_ her. His emotions engulf her, his desire to do more, to do _everything_ , and his ever-present fear of hurting her. Breaking something. Ruining the only thing he hasn’t yet. 

“I don’t...” She doesn’t even need to speak the rest of the sentence before he understands. 

“Come here.”

Then Ben arranges them — so gently — with their bodies slotted against each other. When she settles into his lap, his back against the wall, it feels right. Perfect. Then she rocks her hips down onto him, and she realizes there’s something past perfection. 

The heat burning between them grows hotter as Rey finds a pace that has her moaning and him gripping her hips. His hands are so big on her, his thumbs on her stomach and his long fingers wrapping around her back. She watches his arms flex as he helps direct her, shifting her as if she weighed nothing, moving her to meet the rocking of his body under hers. Stars, she likes the way he consumes her. She's in control, on top of him, but she likes sinking into his touch, trusting the pace he sets. Certainly they’re making too much noise. Will anyone hear? They won’t hear him, they can’t hear through the bond — anyone outside her door would assume she was touching herself, perfectly fine, if only she can keep from saying his name and giving herself up. 

Then he reaches down, slipping his fingers under her pants and circling her, and she sobs. _Loudly_. “ _Ben._ ”

Well, there goes that. Now that she’s said his name, she can’t stop. Her fingers curl around his shoulders and she can feel the wave building inside her and she needs just a bit more. 

“I need to see you.” Her voice is unrecognizable in her ears. “Ben. I need to see you.”

He tilts his head in confusion so she does it herself, dropping a hand between their bodies and tugging at his pants and finally, _finally_ seeing all of him. 

“Rey, starlight—”

 _Starlight. That’s new._ She likes it. She also likes his voice — it sounds broken, gravely, like rent metal. She settles in place so she can grind along his length and he whimpers. Oh, stars, she can feel herself clench at the sound. He sounds so good like that. _Can I make him beg?_

“Kiss me, Ben.” 

His mouth is hot against hers and he tastes vaguely like stale caf and she does not care at all because he moans into her mouth and she loves it. He breaks the kiss and heaves in a breath and the face on his expression is something akin to pain. 

“Rey, fuck, I’m close.” His words are slurring. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ , Rey, I’m gonna come, I’m gonna —”

“Come for me. I want to see it.” 

There was no trace of Jedi mind tricks in her voice, but he follows her command as if she ordered it through the Force. The wave breaks and the wall of his feelings crashes over her. He bucks his hips against her and grips her hips tight enough to bruise. His chest heaves, and she feels his entire body tense under her, but it’s the noises he makes that are seared into her mind. His breath is harsh and then he moans her name and when she takes him in hand his length pulses under her fingers and he _keens_. 

Rey watches him coat her hand and his stomach with his come and it’s so filthy and wrong and somehow so right that all it takes is the slightest touch to her clit and she follows him. She collapses against his chest, forcing her hips down onto his, and feels her orgasm like an earthquake. He wraps his arms around her and holds her as she moans his name and sobs silently into his neck. It’s good, it’s so good, it’s _perfect_ , and the feedback loop between their minds makes every sensation echo a dozen times before fading. 

Then it's white noise.

The moments after are long and hazy. Dimly, she’s aware of his hands stroking her hair and the hushed sound of his voice. No clue what he’s saying, but the rumble of his chest against hers is pleasant. She sends a vague plea to the Force not to yank him away and leave her cold and sticky and alone on her metal cot. Mercifully, it lets them linger for what feels like far too long. 

When her heart rate finally returns to something like normal, she pushes herself off his chest and looks down at him. He looks — different. Younger. As if years of worry and hatred and guilt sloughed off of him. _Is this what Ben Solo looked like before?_

_Yes._

Well, she didn’t mean for him to hear that, but it’s too late now. 

Rey makes a marginal effort to shield her mind as the darker thoughts settle in: what next? Will he disappear? When will I see him again? When can we do _this_ again? Will he ever come back? When will he really be Ben again?

He might not be able to hear her thoughts through her shield, but he sees it on her face. His responding sigh is long and heavy, and he pulls her back into his chest. Her chin settles on his shoulder. She suspects the Force might have something to do with the fact that their heartbeats fall in lockstep, as if the universe is pleased that they've ended up here. As her traitorous eyelids slip shut, she lets herself believe that she feels a little Light glow between them.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi y’all :)
> 
> This fic took way too long to write — and did not end where it began — but I wanted to get it right. This is my love letter to reylo and the reylo community. You all are so generous and kind and talented, and the reception for [my previous reylo fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22332589) was beyond anything I could have expected.
> 
> This ridiculous ship has helped me limp through the hell year of 2020, so I present this as a thank-you gift: 5.6k words of my favorite reylo tropes all wrapped up in a oneshot. See if you can spot them all. 
> 
> PS. In my version of Star Wars, they're allowed to say fuck. 
> 
> PS II. Full disclosure: Ben's nickname of "starlight" for Rey is lifted from likeboadicea's brilliant oneshot ["The Stars' Desires."](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15324495)
> 
> As always, I’m not really on social media but I love to chat, so drop a line in the comments! 
> 
> Hope you and your loved ones are staying safe and well out there.


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